Not saying that's ideal in all regards but that was what I could manage.

Well, based on those samples, the EM5 has the clear edge.

For my personal/wants needs, there aren't a whole lot of pictures that would benefit from (or "tolerate") much less DoF than I get when I shoot my fast MFT primes (12/2, 20/1.7, 45/1.8, 75/1.8) wide open, although as you know I am less fond of background blur with very fast WAs than you are. That said, exceptions do of course exist. See example below.

To that end, I think it would be interesting to see a comparison with competently processed photos.

P.S.: I think the EM5 would come out significantly ahead in situations where it could use IBIS and a longer shutter speed and FF could not use a tripod.

And, yes, don't forget the awesome IBIS in the EM5.

I am not since I strongly appreciate it. In all fairness though, you can get IBIS with FF too if you get yourself an A99 (although I am not sure whether the efficiency matches that of the E-M5). And below is an example of an image that we have discussed before where an FF-camera with IBIS would beat the E-M5 with IBIS. As you can see, this is with the 12 mm at f/2 and 0.4 s. But the scene is sufficiently far away that one could have used a 24/1.4 on FF and still have sufficient DoF.

Thing is, though, that at such wide apertures, the corners suffer. So, for low light wide aperture photography where corners matter (e.g. astrophotography), FF still has ample room for improvement.

And no, tripod-friends, a tripod would not have helped here. I was standing on a staircase that was constantly vibrating due to the traffic on the bridge to which it was connected.

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